Seven; Cobalt

Their dinners became silent. Every day, John would come home a bit later than usual, and every day, Claire would tell him to "stop, just stop, don't give me an excuse. I've nothing to say."

He'd leave. She always had something to say.

("Why are you late?" "Dinner's bloody cold." "Do you even care?" "You missed my father's speech." "You embarrass me, and you do it on purpose." "This is all a joke to you, isn't it?")

And John would be thinking: I can do so much better than this; I can do so much better than you; I'm late because you make me more tired than any amount of paperwork ever has; I don't care; and I hope your fucking dinner is cold, I hope you choke on it.

"Claire," he'd ring, "not tonight."

"John Hamish Watson, if-"

"Can you just shut up?" John was silent, for a second, his eyes pinching shut. His finger came up to gesture. "Just one night," he breathed tersely. "Just one night, shut up and eat your dinner, and we can pretend it never happened in the morning. Just one time, Claire. If we mean anything to you - tonight - just..."

And that was how it came to pass. No talks about sewing circle. No mentions of Allison Baker. The Germans were bombing London, day and night. No one dared bring it up. The only thing John would say from the moment he got home from the moment he slipped into bed with his fiancée would be: "Good food," or, "Hey." Even that was perfunctory, at best. The room was thick with the quiet of chewing.

"John, I keeping on telling you to stop that-"

John looked up, daring her to speak. "What?"

She smiled at him, a simpering look. She wanted him to know that she hated every inch of him. John smiled back, and deliberately chewed with his mouth open. "Pass the salt?"

Every single movement they made was spiteful. It was almost miraculous - proof of their coordination, the way they knew exactly which buttons to push without speaking. At night, Claire would read until eleven. John would snore. She would sleep on his arm. He would rip the covers away from her in the middle of the night and turn off the heat.

He would stare at her face in the dark and be troubled because of it. John imagined coming out of his mother pale and ashen and bare. She'd said he was only 2.2 kilos. Small, impotent. As if God had predetermined what he was going to grow up to be.

A doctor that couldn't heal, a man that couldn't fight. A lover that hated. He was incapable, and he didn't deserve her. He didn't, and he knew it - which made his decision much easier, in the end.

***

"I'm leaving," John said to her in the morning. The sun was not yet awake, and she blinked a couple of times before responding, "It's six o'clock." Their breakfast was before them, hot sausage with scones and jam. John had eaten a single boiled egg. He stood up, walking over into the living room and pulling a jacket onto his shoulders. "Problem?" he called into the next room, half of his body obscured by drywall. He took that opportunity to remove his engagement ring from his finger, shoving it into his back pocket.

Claire's face crumpled. For the first time in a week or so, she actually sounded hurt instead of angry. "Yes," she breathed. "Can I - can I just talk to you? For a moment? Just - one second, John."

John paused at the door, his hand on the knob. Claire couldn't see him, but she heard his voice, and its weary intonation. "I know how this ends," John replied softly. "And you can't change my mind."

"I wasn't trying to change anything, John, I..." She sighed, then was silent. "Have a nice day at work, John," she hummed tiresomely.

"I'm just seeing Mrs. Hopkins," John said, his voice sinking, shame bubbling up like a geyser. "I'll be home earlier." He paused, slowly walking back into the kitchen and leaning on the wall. "I swear."

Her eyes were quiet, for a bit. No movement except the occasional tick of her blinking. Finally, she almost mouthed, "I love you," so quiet John had to lean forward to catch the words that she was speaking. He could scream. His insides were churning and his hands were shaking, and he half-wanted to run back to her and bury his fingers in her hair and whisper, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," until the words were no longer words - but he didn't deserve her and he wasn't happy.

He let "I love you" slip through his teeth and it sounded like a lie, and he wondered if she could hear it in his voice, smell it on his breath, like tonic.

He walked a couple of feet back in to kiss her in her chair, not letting his lips linger.

The worst thing? She looked a bit happier by the time he left.

***

Mrs. Hopkins's voice was thick and croaky, as if her vocal chords were grating cheese every time she spoke. Lips like sagging pants, and brown eyes that were glazed over with a transparent film, she hobbled ungracefully from point A to point B. She looked like a tree that leaned much too far into the sun, the weight at the tip heavier than the roots that were keeping it in contact with the ground. She pulled herself from the earth with every movement.

And, oh, God. She was not Sherlock Holmes, because Sherlock Holmes was standing right in front of him, glowing ice blue.

Apparently, he'd just woken up. His hair was messy, and pulled apart into little threads, and he had this almost dulled look in his eyes when he had opened the door. His words came out slurred. "G'morning, John." He rested his head on the wall, obviously still exhausted. "Come in. Kettle's just on."

John looked at him peculiarly, his face twisting into a bit of a smile as he disappeared into the music room. He heard the door click behind him. "It is 6:30, Sherlock," John said, his voice sharp. "Were you here all night?"

He heard someone walking up behind him - and then a familiar hand was on his hip. "I said," Sherlock hummed, "kettle's just on." His hand disappeared from John's body, and he went on to answer his question as John faltered to the kettle on a tiny stove, his stomach clenching. John poured himself tea as Sherlock spoke, answering his previous question. "And yes. My housekeeper complains when I play the violin until three."

John turned to look at him. "Where did you sleep?"

"Office." He pointed to a door on the right, which was slightly open. "Pretty sizable, especially since I'm this academy's greatest asset."

"Yeah." John cleared his throat. "Um."

"You left your paints-"

"Yeah," John replied, nodding once. He smiled. "Yeah, I know." John took his newly brewed tea and sipped it silently, looking up at Sherlock through his lashes. Sherlock watched him, utterly wary. His eyes had sharpened up, although his hair was still messy and undone. John took a long pause before forcing out the words - because this was it, this was the moment he'd felt a crippling guilt for, and he had to say it. "So," he coughed, falling short.

Sherlock kept staring.

"Um," John hummed.

"Spit it out."

I thought about your..." John flashed a quick smile. "Offer."

Sherlock blinked at him. "Yes?"

"Yeah. I..." he stammered, trying to sound the syllables out, one at a time.

"You're awful at this, John. Honestly."

John was silent, an insincere yet provocative smile curling its way across the seams of his mouth. Sherlock smiled back, his mouth pulled tight and thin. His lips looked like they were painted on.

Clowns and ballerinas and violinists; they were categorized effectively into the same faction. They were make-believe. Children wanted to be them when they were older; they were illegitimate fantasies that their mothers had told them stories about before bedtime. John was tempted to say something; to make the situation present, to connect it to something real again. At the moment, it seemed like he was removed from his actions.

"Are you always so loyal, Doctor?" Sherlock suddenly spoke up, his Cheshire grin completely gone.

John lifted his tea from the saucer and brought it to his lips before joking, "Depends how drunk I am," and taking a brief sip.

"John."

Sherlock was staring at him, his expression intrigued. John glanced behind him, as if to see if anyone was there, his heart rate picking up in the silence. He said, "Yeah?"

"Do you want to fuck?"

John blinked. "...Well." He looked away from Sherlock, who seemed to float closer without moving his feet. "Uh, well - I suppose I - I could if - it's not that I - um. Um." John straightened his back, crossing his arms and staying silent so that he wouldn't condemn himself, his eyes fixed on a spot just to the right of Sherlock's head. He tried to breathe slower - to process it all, one word at a time. "So," he stated, his voice definitive, yet somehow still unsure. He raised his eyebrows, looking up at Sherlock through blonde lashes. His eyes were a paint bucket that had been splashed onto a white wall, everywhere. "You... you figure," John pronounced, shifting his weight onto his other leg, "that we should..."

Sherlock nodded, very slowly.

This was it. John could say no. He could turn away from this, and no one would ever know except him. He would never taste those lips, or grab onto those curls. He'd never feel sane again. John could say no. He could run back to Claire, ashamed of himself but still half-alive. Because this man - Sherlock Holmes - could touch him and irradiate his body and soul. He could tear black holes in John's skin.

Sherlock leaned over, then. Close. "John," he stated, his voice low. "Let's be brutally honest with each other."

***

Sherlock's tongue was in his mouth, and it was briefly slipping past his mind that Christ, this bloke is a good kisser, because he was sucking ferociously on John's lower lip and savagely squeezing the round of his arse, and John couldn't think, because if he had, all his thoughts would've been static only he understood.

His heart was thudding, his entire body was rushing with blood, and his cock was rock hard - he didn't even know what had happened but now he was here and Sherlock's hand... "Fuck," John gasped into Sherlock's kiss. "Fuck."

It was true; Sherlock tasted like smoke and peppermints. The kind you stuck on your tongue during Christmas, the kind you dipped into your hot chocolate.

His tongue was alight. John's tongue was on fire. He was burning up. He was nothingness. He was now null. He was void, existence an illusion, reality simply a concept; the best thing he'd ever done was this, he didn't - he couldn't fathom - this... this man, he was dividing his atoms in half, he was made of stars and the bonds that held his molecules together were breaking, splitting into oblivion. Sherlock was right here, all of him, looking like a chemical spill, smelling of sex and candy.

Physically, Sherlock was kissing him. He grabbed his hands and pinned them to the wall, so that John couldn't move if he tried, every eager reach for Sherlock's body met with the scratch of drywall, and a rough, possessive groan into John's mouth. As if he weren't allowed to touch what was his - his cock was pulsing in his trousers, straining uncomfortably into his pants. Sherlock's tongue tasted just as John had imagined, and his tongue was what drew out those nasty whimpers, what made John struggle against Sherlock's touch. He wheezed out a indiscernible word as Sherlock ferociously sucked on the junction of John's chin and neck, slamming his head back onto the wall behind him. There was a loud crash as a violin fell from a wall, screeching with eerie twangs of metal string.

John felt Sherlock's hand let go of his wrist and slide delicately down to the crotch of his pants, and take a warm hold, God, he could come just like this. If he just rode his palm, he could do it, Jesus, Sherlock was turning him into a sinner, the type that your mother told you to stay away from.

He felt every atom inside of him decomposing. Sherlock's touch was rendering him into nothingness, freezing him to absolute zero, to where the particles had ceased, time had ceased, where everything was colored in with acrylic variations of frozen light. Was there a speed slower than stopped? Or a temperature lower than zero Kelvin? A point more dense than the singularity of a black hole, where the lines between reality and illusion became one and the same? Was there a moment in space-time where there was just... an absence?

If there was, it would be right here, under John's fingertips. There were things that John had learned in years on this earth, infallible truths, but this was not one of them. John was not here. He was in some space that didn't exist within the brackets of palpability.

He was fucking around with Sherlock Holmes. And it was literally a crime.

Which made it way hotter.

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